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Covid 19

Ferris State Trustees Pass Ten Percent Budget Cut

Ferris State University made some big changes to their budget to make up for the $30 million deficit they’re expecting because of COVID-19.

“The financial pressures of the university are significant at this point,” says David Eisler, president of Ferris State University.

The board of trustees recently passed a plan to cut 10% from their budget next year.

Eisler says a tuition increase was one of the items voted on:

“Our approach is to do something more modest and protect students from significant increases in the future.”

That includes an increase of 2.78 percent for freshman and sophomores and nearly 3.98 percent for juniors and seniors.

“Additionally, we have more support available this year,” says Eisler. “We still have CARES funding that’s available for students, which is an extra support for our returning students for financial assistance.”

Room and board rates will also change to provide students more separation and social distance.

Eisler says, “What we’re doing for students is, we’re offering them a single room at the price of a double room and we think that some students will want to have a single room and we have the capacity to do that.”

To further cut costs, the university voted to sell its Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (UICA) building in Grand Rapids and move it to the Kendall College of Art and Design Campus.

“The organization just doesn’t produce enough revenue to sustain itself in that facility,” says Eisler.

Eisler hopes the move will be a financially stable alternative to continue an organization that’s been involved in the community for forty years.

“They work with contemporary artists; emerging artists and they have a strong commitment to including many different populations of minority populations in the art and as artists,” says Eisler.

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